Concert Review: The Dresden Dolls / Smoosh at the Palladium

by Todd Maternowski

Far too many bands in the "independent" scene treat live shows as an unwelcome chore: listlessly trudging through their Greatest Hits, clumsily dropping in some of their new songs unfamiliar to their casual fans, and refusing to go beyond the absolute bare minimum when it comes to artist-crowd interaction. Regardless of the quality of music for these bands, going to a live show for a band that doesn't even try is a complete waste of time, and, frankly, an insult to the audience.

Fortunately, there is one up-and-coming national act that gives everything they have to their audience, expending buckets of sweat and energy in an effort to make every concert a fantastic lifelong memory. Boston-based Brechtian punk cabaret band The Dresden Dolls rocked the crowd at the Palladium Saturday night, their second trip to Dallas in the last two years, and first in more than half a decade as a headliner.

The piano-and-drums punk duo came last year as part of the True Colors tour, opening for Cyndi Lauper, Erasure and Deborah Harry --and thoroughly working over the sweltering, mostly middle-aged crowd at the Smirnoff with their tireless stagemanship and hypersoulful music. The crowd at the Palladium was, naturally, significantly smaller (and about 30 years younger, on average), but the band's effort was the same, connecting to their hardcore fans with an impressive barrage of musicianship and stagecraft.

The set was opened by the surprisingly good indie-pop band Smoosh. Smoosh --three barely teenaged sisters from Seattle-- at first appeared to be some sort of female Hanson novelty act, but it didn't take long for the audience to realize that these little kids had some serious musical chops. The songs were poppy but polished, as singer/keyboardist Asya and drummer Chloe won over the audience with entirely original, well-played material that seemed far beyond a couple of 16- and 14-year old girls. Midway through the set, miniscule bass player Maia joined her older sisters, which upped the cuteness ante for the awed female audience members. The girls didn't seem to have much stage presence --yet-- but the quality of the music was unquestionably good, and a pleasant surprise.

Smoosh was followed by a modern dance/burlesque act, which came complete with its own (possibly unintentional) Janet Jackson Superbowl moment.

After a brief pause, the Dresden Dolls opened their set to the awesomely evil sounds of the Imperial Death March, dressed in SS-style military longcoats and hats --ironically, the exact same setup a promising local band had been toying with for opening their first show. Within minutes, the trenchcoats had been thrown off and the high-energy duo began their full-on assault on the suspecting audience members.

The band, composed of singer/keyboardist Amanda Palmer and drummer/guitarist/hypeman Brian Viglione, combines elements of rock, punk, piano pop, heavy metal and folk into a tight, accessible sound unique to the band. Behind Palmer's pounding on her Kurzweil piano and Viglione's hypercaffeinated drumming, the band produces incredibly catchy songs with memorable hooks --and on top of that, throws in some of the best songwriting in recent memory.

The band performed many of their Greatest Hits --golden standards like Girl Anachronism, Coin Operated Boy and Half Jack had the crowd all worked up in a lather-- but the Dolls mixed up their top singles with plenty of new stuff off their latest album, No, Virginia.... The album, released just last week, is a collection of B-sides and rarities not included on their previous album Yes Virginia, which may explain why the new songs blended so well with the more familiar material.

More noticeably was the large number of cover songs the band performed: starting with Pink Floyd's mood-setting circus romp "In the Flesh" and ending with their traditional finale, Black Sabbath's 'War Pigs', the band lent its singular energy and style to each cover song they played. Most of the cover songs were fleshed out with a little help: the band did a cover of the (fellow all-out performers) Beastie Boys' Fight For Your Right' with Smoosh's 11-year old bassist Maia, and the entire Smoosh crew came out to help the Dolls do a crowd-pleasing rendition of Radiohead's 'Karma Police'.

Easily the most memorable of all the cover songs was when Viglione invited his lifelong friends, members of local DFW metal band The Destro, up on stage to sing the Guns n' Roses ballad 'Patience'. Naturally, the crowd was eager to help out on the singalong-friendly choruses.

Finally, in addition to their old stuff, new stuff, and other people's stuff, Palmer did a number from her upcoming solo effort --with Viglione helping out on the drums with NIN's newest album, she probably had a little more time on her hands-- during which she walked into, around, and through the star-struck audience. It was the pinnacle of a night full of crowd interaction: one gets the impression that if injuries and the resulting lawsuits were not an issue, the band would gladly have invited the entire crowd up on stage to participate in the performing experience. Although they hardly ever come through this part of the country, the Dresden Dolls are unquestionably a live act not to be missed.